Recording for Ben Chambers 16 Million Rising February 2018 Broadcast

The full broadcast can be found at: https://www.mixcloud.com/SixteenMillionRising/smr-ep17-go-west/

Our recording appears at 1 hour, 56 minutes

The text is as follows:

Theresa May is a not a very effective prime minister. Some feel she deserves pity because she is bullied by her ministers.

It seems that she is being allowed to stay in the job largely because there are no credible alternatives in her own party.

But the Tories also fear that, if she dropped out, this could provoke another general election that would be won by Labour. So, the propping up of the incompetent May is all about keeping Jeremy Corbyn out of 10 Downing Street.

Since June 2015, when Corbyn stood to be Labour party leader, he has faced a lot of negative press coverage. Now, as part of the process to shore up May, the right-wing papers continue to portray him as an IRA sympathizer, and brand him as anti-Semitic, pro-Muslim, pacifist and anti-capitalist. Some say that his re-nationalisation of the railways and the energy market would bust the British economy.

Members of his own party complain about his seeming ambivalence about Brexit.

I rather like the prospect of having a prime minister who cultivates his allotment and makes his own jam. Communing with nature provides space for vital reflection that tends to be denied by the hectic schedules imposed on most people in high office.

Wouldn’t it be good to have a PM who has no airs and graces, who is a good listener, who thinks before he talks, and who treats those he meets, especially when they are less exalted than him, with respect?

Corbyn’s great strength is that he has been consistent over the years. He is not driven by ambition and opportunism like Johnson and Gove. He has always stood up for his beliefs on social justice and on the futility of war, putting these ahead of any aspiration for high office. Now – as the gaps between rich and poor widen because of austerity policies and deregulation, and as we see how ill-judged the UK was to enter the Iraq war – he is “spot on”.

Above all, I respect Corbyn’s commitment to nurturing peace through dialogue rather than sabre-rattling: lasting peace can only come from engaging conflicting parties on an equal footing and building mutual trust.

The present government aspires to last till 2022, overseeing the country’s exit from the EU. However, it remains vulnerable to defeat. If Corbyn is to be able to pursue his goal of creating a fairer society, he must quickly stop Britain from leaving the Customs Union and Single Market, to guarantee the country’s prosperity and its ability to pay for reforms. A real possibility exists that he could win a vote of no confidence in the government’s Brexit negotiating performance if May continues to insist on Britain’s withdrawal from the present EU trading arrangements. This would trigger a general election which could give him a mandate to negotiate constructively with the EU. He should not exclude continuing EU membership, if he senses that this is what most British voters would then want.